My favorite quick meal is cranberry almond couscous. Everything can be made in the pot of a rice cooker, eat it straight out of the pot with a spoon if you're feeling like a particularly lazy shit! 1/2 cup couscous with 1 cup of vegetable broth, 1/2 tsp of cinnamon, 1/2 tsp of cumin, and 1/4 cup of dried cranberries in one of those one button rice cookers. After its done, add 1/3 cup of toasted/roasted unsalted almonds, a tablespoon or two of rice wine vinegar, some chopped green onion, and about a 1/4 cup of olive oil and mix it up.

It's good right away, though to be honest it's a lot better at room temperature.

I'm no vegetarian but in my poorer times I declared onions to be an honorary meat form, and invented what I like to call "super pasta". Not only is it delicious and filling, but I was able to feed myself for a week on £6 by buying the ingredients in bulk.

The Sauce

fry up some finely chopped onions with a bit of garlic and some chili peppers, to taste. Once this is fried up, add either a tin of chopped tomatoes or if you are feeling posh, chop your own vine tomatoes and add them in. Keep on a medium heat until nice and soft and mushy, then add some basil, parley or cumin (cycle through as necessary, based upon what one you ate last night). Your sauce is now ready.

The Pasta

boil some pasta

The Magic Bit

Put the sauce on the pasta, pop some grated cheese on top if you can afford it and serve.

Finish pasta after boiling in the hot pan with the sauce. The starches from the pasta will mingle and tighten up the sauce. The sauce will also cling to the pasta better so you don't have that pale pool of shitty sauce water under the pasta.

Serrano and black bean tacos. I sautee a few chopped up serrano peppers and a half an onion with salt, pepper, cumin, and garlic powder to taste, then add a can of drained and rinsed black beans and cook until they're heated up but not mushy. Use the other half of the onion for a raw topping, along with whatever you like on your tacos. I prefer tomatoes, avocado, and cilantro. Quick and easy summer vegetarian meal.

For the chickpeas: Dice half an onion and sauté. Add garlic, coriander seed, cumin, cinnamon, chilli and a little ground ginger. Add about 1 to 1 and a half cups of passata or tomato puree and one tin of chickpeas (drained and rinsed). Salt to taste. Pop a lid on it and keep it on low.

For the greens: Cook whatever veggies you want. I usually either steam green beans or wilt baby spinach in a pan.

For the haloumi: Slice and grill or fry that baby.

For the cous cous: One cup of cous cous in a bowl with one cup of boiling water. It's tasty to use veggie stock instead of water. Cover with cling film immediately and let sit for a couple of minutes. Take cling film off, pop in a tablespoon of butter and fluff with a fork. If you have parsley on hand finely chop some and fold through.

Pile it all on a plate with a couple of wedges of lemon.

This is nice with roasted veg when you have plenty of time to prepare the meal.

Carrot, potatoes, parsnip and whatever you fancy gets grated. Onion flipped around in a pan until soft. Add to grated veggies. A number of garliccloves pressed in the mix.

Red lentils boiled until theyre mush, almost completely overdone. Add to veggies. One egg and a bit of breadcrumbs (those...fine breadcrumbs that kinda look like flour?) gets to join the party too. You want a wet but not runny paste. Season with whatever. I like currypowder, salt, black pepper but you can get some chili or limejuice or whatever you enjoy.

The paste is plopped down in a pan and shaped into round and flat shapes, fried in oil on medium heat and flipped when they have a nice colour. Very nom, very easy to do. *And very fucking cheap.

"Neatball" sub with any veggie protein and tomato sauce, similar ingredients can be used to make "sloppy joes." My recipe uses a specific brand of veg.meat, message me if you want it.

Stir-fry of literally anything you can throw in a pan with some sesame oil and "oyster" sauce (there are vegan versions of fish sauce and oyster sauce at many Asian markets).

Burritos: Eggs, beans (black or pinto, refried or whole), cheese, veggie protein, sauteed veggies, and/or rice. While you're prepping the fillings, make sure to throw your tortilla on the stove (don't you dare microwave it) for about a minute per side on med-high heat to get rid of that nasty doughy texture.

Is very easy. I use this recipe (sans fish sauce, of course) and quart mason jars for fermenting/storage. You can use different vegetables. I frequently sub European radishes and bok choy for some of the napa cabbage. I recommend starting out with 1 or 2 tblsp of gochugaru. I find that if I use 3 or more, some sweat and tears are involved in the eating.

Chinese noodles take me about 10 minutes and I could eat them (and do eat them) nearly everyday. Pretty much just boil noodles and saute whatever veggie toppings you want simultaneously (I use dried tofu, those frozen bagged veggies, spiced radishes, and salt). Add water to the saute pan (to make soup) at the same time as when you throw the noodles in boiling pot of water. Wait a couple minutes, take noodles out and add soy sauce + chili sauce, throw on veggie soup and you got a meal. I also usually throw on marinated bamboo shoots on top of it.

This is a 5 minute recipe in essence. Open can of chick peas, wash and drain. Add chopped green onions, chopped cilantro (or even better, sorrel), chopped avocado and crumbled feta. Mix and add lemon juice. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Add some sliced peperoncini if you want heat.

I like to made "egg salad" but instead of eggs I use a can of chickpeas, half whole and half crushed up with a fork. Mix with mayo (or vegan mayo), chopped red onion, chopped pickle, fresh dill, salt, pepper.